Tid Lit

After reading her bio on the Literacy for Boys website I was a little nervous for my very first Tid Lit Talkers interview with Tanya Grambower, little did I know we’d leave the e-meet as two individuals who could have been mistaken for old friends. Our chat about literacy, equitable access to educational opportunities, and the power of humble upbringings went for over an hour but a short snippet is presented for you below. Tanya speaks passionately about the need for differentiation in classrooms, especially when it comes to the learning styles of girls and boys. Having been an educator for over 20 years in both Australian and international spaces, Tanya’s focus has been on giving boys a step up into literature, and a real go at literacy. Her empirical evidence about boys being disengaged by certain topics and teaching styles hits close to home as she speaks honestly in relation to her experiences with her own two son’s changing reading patterns over their adolescent years. I can empa...

  If we assume that a majority of all individuals understand the definition of Literacy to be the ability to read and write, then we can begin to understand where the following assumption stems from; the responsibility of developing these skills rests predominantly with English and Literature teachers. Most English teachers I have met across Australia will attest to this assumption, while rolling their eyes or huffing with discontent. And rightly so. If the literacy of an entire class, school, town, city, state, and even nation depended on the very small percentage of people who teach English then we’d all be in the metaphorical creek without paddles (unable to articulate what a paddle is or why we need it to those on dry land watching us drown). Similarly, this group should not be scapegoated when poor literacy is discovered in a school, town, state, or nation. If you’ve never come across the African proverb "it takes a village to raise a child” then I hope you scan back and rer...

  In my years as an educator I’ve come across many formal definitions of literacy; however, it's in my personal interactions with family and friends that I have formalised my own definition of this complex term. There are three seminal experiences I want to transport you to before I present you with the ‘dictionary definition’ you probably came here for. It is my first year of university in my bachelor’s degree in secondary education and we are in a tutorial writing a letter to ourselves as a graduate teacher. I am passionate beyond my caffeination and vow to give every student an equal opportunity to read and write competently by the time they leave school. Fast forward to the moment I reopen this letter and realise how narrow minded I was. It is my second year in the classroom and I am marking draft creative writing pieces from my standard* English students. My most disengaged student has finally produced a piece of work which I personally find brilliant. I am immediately dishear...

Literacy is a word thrown around by governments, parents and teachers who all have strong opinions. It’s also a hot topic for the media, especially when the news cycle is slow… This blog is designed to provide readers with a tid bit of literacy related material every week, to help address the misconceptions it continues to generate among educators and non-educators. The first blog will address the definition of Literacy and how we can better understand what is means in the different contexts its used.  Blog posts will be published each Wednesday! Photo by  Ismail Salad Osman Hajji dirir  on  Unsplash